AGA Wins Haute@Home and Gifts.com Accounts

AGA Catalog Marketing and Design has been named agency of record by ready-to-serve meals online retailer Haute@Home and by gifting products site gifts.com.

AGA will help Haute@Home and gifts.com with their upcoming catalogs timed for the fall and holiday seasons. Gillatt Paris, Dallas, previously had the Haute@Home account. Gifts.com was handled inhouse.

"As a catalog agency, one of the trends we're noticing is the need for multichannel marketers to keep their brand consistent over all customer communications," said Andy Russell, president/CEO of AGA, New York.

AGA posted estimated billings of more than $50 million last year.

Haute@Home tapped AGA to design, photograph and print the Haute@Home Cuisine Fall/Holiday 2000 catalog. This is the third catalog issued by Haute@Home and the first produced by AGA.

"They really weren't happy with the work they got on the previous account," said Rhonda Cohen, chief creative officer at AGA. "What we were challenged with was to visually communicate with the consumer as they would shop in a supermarket. What they didn't feel they achieved in the previous catalogs was a visual differentiation between all the courses and categories of merchandise."

The book is priced at $3.75 and is scheduled to reach consumers by Oct. 7.

"Their previous book was really designed [as] art for art's sake," Cohen said. "There was no organization of different categories of gifts, and also there was no verbiage about the emotional aspect of gift giving, which is key here. It wasn't an effective driver to the Web site. It didn't have enough devices in the catalog to drive consumers to the Web site. What we've done is created a 'Netalog' -- a printed piece meant to be a companion to the site."

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